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Crimewatchers.net opened on April 26, 2015 with the purpose of making a difference in getting the word out for the missing, unidentified, and justice for victims. Let us know if you have a case you'd like us to feature here, on Twitter &/or Facebook. Contact email: CrimewatchersCW@gmail.com

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) - Forensic specialists in Texas are receiving volunteer help from other states as they work to identify the remains of 90 people discovered buried in a South Texas cemetery last year.

Authorities say the remains are those of immigrants who entered the country illegally and died during their journey into Texas.

Texas State University anthropologist Kate Spradley directs a project aimed at identifying the remains found at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Brooks County so their loved ones know what happened to them.

• On May 1, a worker clearing brush on the banks of Worcester County’s Baker’s Brook near the intersection of Lunenburg Road and John Fitch Highway uncovered the nearly complete skeletal remains of a woman wrapped in a bed sheet and partially buried. The woman, about 5 feet 2 inches with brown hair and an estimated age between 25 to 53, is believed to have died sometime between 2005 and 2012. The case is considered a suspicious death, according to the Worcester District Attorney’s Office.

• A man walking his dog found the partial remains of a man, including a human leg still wearing a sock, on a Plum Island beach in Newbury on Dec. 13. More remains were found a few days later, according to prosecutors. The man was estimated to be between age 27 and 66 and 5 feet 7 inches tall. Authorities estimated he had died about six months prior.

Essex County prosecutors told the Herald remains often wash up in that area of Newbury because of currents. Authorities reported partial skeletal remains found along the Newbury shoreline on Jan. 20 and March 28, as well as remains found May 23 — the body of a person who reportedly died within the past two years.

• A headless and limbless body was dumped in the dunes at Town Neck Beach in Sandwich before the remains were discovered June 4, 2014. The torso of the man was wrapped in trash bags, concealed under a tarp and strapped to a blue moving dolly. The man was described as black, about 6 feet tall and weighing between 220 and 230 pounds, with a 4-inch scar on the right side of his abdomen — possibly a result of hernia surgery. He was wearing black sweatpants and a dark blue T-shirt, with “I got serviced” written on the front and a logo for “Windustrial” and other vendors on the back. Prosecutors say the case remains under active investigation.

• The remains of a man washed ashore on Revere Beach on April 30, 2014. The man, believed to be under the age of 40, was found wearing torn American Eagle jeans, a braided leather belt, boxer underwear with a VW bug and surfboard pattern, and a wool hat. He had a small key to a Kryptonite bicycle lock. Prosecutors said they ruled out a missing fisherman in the case, which remains open.

Gastelle said his advice to families with missing loved ones would be to exhaust every effort. “My message to my peers in this awful club that we belong to is to not give up hope,” he said. “There are tools out there [you can use]. Retrace the steps of your loved ones. Be a detective yourself.”

Detective Wayne Promisel of the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said when a body is found, investigators look for any clues that can help point them in the right direction, including tire tracks, cigarette butts and bottles.

Since 1988, the Loudoun sheriff’s office has found three bodies — two infants and one adult — that could not be identified after an initial investigation, according to department spokeswoman Liz Mills. The infants were found in a pond; the adult, who had been shot, was discovered as a skeleton found wrapped in a blanket in a wooded area, according to the authorities. Those cases remain under investigation.

SAN MARCOS, Texas (AP) — Kate Spradley was scrolling through the national database of missing people when she noticed a report contained a small detail, the color of a shirt, that made her pause.

A man Spradley calls Oscar, from El Salvador, was reported missing by a family member in Houston. He and a group of undocumented migrants circumvented the Border Patrol checkpoint in Falfurrias by trekking through sandy, rugged terrain. When Oscar was injured, another migrant tied a brown plaid shirt his leg to help him walk.

Remains of homicide victim found near Vancouver identified after 41 years

According to Reba Morrison, Martha Morrison’s sister, a family member said he reported the teen as missing in 1974, but in fact he hadn’t.

Martha Morrison lived in Portland with a man described as a thinly built, light-skinned African-American. She was reportedly last seen in September 1974, when she left their apartment following an argument. She has not been seen or heard from since.

In 2010, though, when the Morrison family checked on the case, they discovered that her disappearance had never actually been reported to police.

In the years that followed, law enforcement took a swab from the inside of the cheeks of Reba Morrison and Martha’s half-brother, Michael Morrison, for DNA comparisons. The results yielded a possible match with the unidentified Dole Valley remains, but nothing conclusive.

“This is the first lead we’ve had on this case ever — since 1974 — for identifying this girl,” Costa said.

She was told by the experts: “You need more DNA; it’s statistically weak.”

But Martha Morrison’s parents were dead. When Costa reached out to more family, they were resistant.

So she tried different avenues: With help from the Eugene Police Department, Costa hunted down a tissue sample of Martha Morrison’s mother that was on file at a Springfield, Ore., medical facility. That sample, she said, was days away from being destroyed.

The sample showed the DNA was consistent, but still not conclusive.

Though she had hit another dead end, Costa continued to search for more clues.

Ideas came to her while driving to work, taking a shower or when she’d see something on the news.

“It was constantly churning in the back of my mind,” she said. “I needed a final answer … She deserved a name.”

Costa realized that Martha Morrison had psoriasis and spent months researching whether using the disease to match with her family could help the case. She researched using photo superimposition technology to overlay a photo of Martha Morrison onto the bones to draw a conclusion, but the only photo she had was a Polaroid, which was too small.

“It’s a little needle in the haystack,” she said. “The answers are out there, I just needed to ask the right questions.”

Martha Morrison had been in foster care and once lived at a children’s facility in Corvallis, Ore., so Costa reached out to those agencies for any clues. She searched for Martha Morrison’s dental records and even called Reba Morrison, hoping that her mother had kept a lock of Martha’s baby hair.

More and more experts that she talked to told her, “We know it’s her,” Costa said, but not confidently enough to put it in a report. Costa said all she heard was: “Don’t give up.”

She had librarians search old obituaries, hoping to find a close enough relative that might bolster the DNA match.

LOS ANGELES — The human remains of a Filipino woman from National City, California who was 32 years old at the time of her death have been identified, 23 years after her disappearance, police said on Tuesday, July 7.

Jovita Collazo was reported missing to authorities on May 2, 1992 and was presumed slain because her remains could not be found.

Collazo was last seen at her apartment on May 1, 1992. She had left the apartment of her husband, Michael Collazo (who she was separated from at the time but had plans to resume their relationship), to briefly go to her own place, but she never returned, according to the San Diego Union Tribune.

Sgt. David Bavencoff of the National City Police Department confirmed with the Asian Journal on Friday, July 10 that Collazo was Filipino.

Boyfriend suspected

Police suspected her then-boyfriend, Michael Richardson, was responsible, but he was never charged because there was no direct evidence.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — Her body was found in her third-floor apartment in Northwest Washington, and among the few valuables she left behind, police said, were a pair of mahogany leather boots, some cheap jewelry and $152 in cash.

Residents at her apartment complex said the woman, who was between 45 and 65 years old, developed a churlish reputation over the years. The only thing she was known more for besides her all-black ensemble and her affinity for cigarettes was her brusque demeanor.

“She was kind of an unusual lady,” one longtime resident of the Connecticut Avenue building said. “You weren’t really sure what to do (around her).”

More than six months after she was found dead of undetermined causes, no one knows her name.

In most instances, families and friends are notified fairly quickly about the death of a loved one. But there are also those found dead whose identities remain a mystery for months, even years or decades.

“There are families out there who don’t have closure,” said Officer Jonathan Perok of the Prince William County police department. “It’s hard for (the detectives) to know they have remains and to know a little bit about the person, and to know the family is out there.”

According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, run by the U.S. Justice Department, authorities in Maryland have been unable to identify the remains of 296 people, with some cases dating back to the 1950s. There are 161 cases in Virginia, according to the agency, including many that have remained mysteries for years. Some were suicides or natural deaths; others were slain.

(ABC 6 NEWS) -- Forensic scientists in St. Paul are working to identify nearly 70 sets of human remains that have been found in Minnesota. Some date back decades. Others, like remains found in Freeborn County, were just discovered months ago.

"The body was found up against the interstate fence. It was oriented with the head facing east, feet facing west and it was on its back," says Freeborn County Sheriff Kurt Freitag.

The body was discovered in early April along Interstate 90 near Albert Lea. Investigators believe it was dumped in the location at least a few years ago.

Sheriff Freitag says, "It had been there long enough that some of the smaller bones and some of the larger bones had started to sink down into the soil."

But besides a pair of shoes and a ring found at the scene, investigators have little to work with.

"The identity is the pinnacle of our goal through this part of our investigation. Without having an identity we have nothing to go off of," adds Sheriff Freitag.

RHODHISS, N.C. (WBTV) – Human remains were found inside a car pulled from Rhodhiss Lake Tuesday, according to officials.

The mud-filled car is estimated to have been in the water for at least 40 years, officials say. The identity of the person found has not been released but officials believe the remains belong to a man who has been missing since the 1970s.

Human remains discovered near Spooner Summit in late June last year were recently identified as those of a Reno man.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office received results from DNA testing on the remains Thursday, authorities said in a news release. Deputies found that the remains belonged to Ryan Wallace Osburn, 32, who is believed to have shot himself in the head.

Last year, investigators recovered Osburn’s remains in King Canyon. That included his personal property and a handgun, projectile and shell.

NORTH BAY - The human remains discovered June 6 by a group of university biology students conducting research in a marsh off Highway 11 in North Bay have been identified as belonging to Bernard Sackaney.

North Bay police received the notification Friday afternoon from the Ontario Forensic Pathology Services.

Sackaney (born in 1963) was reported missing to the Timmins Police Service in July 2011.

Timmins police have notified the family of the deceased. The cause of death is undetermined, but police said there is no evidence to suspect foul play.

The biology students conducting research in the marsh first discovered a shoe which they believed to contain human remains shortly after 4:30 p.m. June 6. They contacted police to report their findings.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Reba Morrison may never have known what happened to her sister Martha if not for a woman she’s never met.

Jamie Grissim was last seen Dec. 7, 1971 after she left Ft. Vancouver High School in Vancouver. (Courtesy photo, May 8, 2013)Martha Morrison was 17 when she was last seen in September 1974. Jamie Grissim was 16 when she went missing after school on December 7, 1971.

Grissim’s purse, ID and other possessions were found along Dole Valley Road, east of Battle Ground, on May 1, 1972. But her body was never found.

On October 12, 1974, the skeletons of 2 women were found in the same Dole Valley area of Clark County on a logging road. One was identified right away as Carol Platt Valenzuela. The other body was not able to be identified.

(WASHINGTON) -- A team of scientists on Tuesday revealed that a set of 400-year-old skeletons are believed to be early leaders from Jamestown, the place where the English settlement of North America took root, at the Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

“They were four of the first founders of English America,” said James Horn, president of Jamestown Rediscovery. “They endured years of starvation, Indian attacks, and disease.”

The four men -- Rev. Robert Hunt, Capt. Gabriel Archer, Sir Ferdinando Wainman and Capt. William West -- were prominent Englishmen in their 20s to 40s, according to scientists at the Jamestown Rediscovery.

Their bodies were exhumed in 2013 from a recently-discovered 1608 church in Jamestown, which was also the site of Pocahontas’ marriage to John Rolfe.

Authorities say they've finally confirmed the identity of a decomposed body found 25 years ago in the Big Cypress National Preserve.

The remains were found by a prison work crew on April 3, 1990. An autopsy revealed that the victim had died from blunt force trauma to the head. Detectives believed the woman had been dead for about three weeks before her remains were discovered, and there were no clues to identify her.

The Collier County Sheriff's Office said Friday that they've finally confirmed that the victim was 57-year-old Patricia Minnis. DNA evidence last month proved a strong possible match for Minnis' daughter, who had reported her mother missing after finding her purse in her recreational vehicle.

TAMPA-- USF researchers have identified another set of remains found at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna.

Robert Stephens was committed to the school in 1936, when he was 14 years old. He died 10 months later. The school claimed he was stabbed to death by another inmate.

Stephens was positively identified through DNA from his nephew. He shares a name with the uncle he never knew.

"I'm devastated because from doing a little research, I understand the facility and what they put the kids through and how they treated them, it was really brutal," Robert Stephens, the victim's nephew, said.

USF has now identified six sets of Dozier student's remains. Fifty-one bodies were found buried in unmarked graves on school grounds.